Technical Abstract:
Furan fatty acids (F-acids) have gained attention since they are known to play important roles in a variety of biological systems. Specifically F-acids are known to have strong antioxidant activity. Although widely distributed in most biological systems, F-acids are trace components and their biosynthesis is complicated and quite difficult from sources. Based on biochemical studies, they are considered to be an essential nutritional factor for mammals and should be provided through diet. Hence several studies have reported the chemical synthesis of furan fatty acids using a complicated multistep chemical approach. In this study we have developed a simple one step synthesis of a novel furan fatty acid 7,10 epoxy-octadeca-7,9-dienoic acid (EODA) from a dihydroxy fatty acid 7,10-dihydroxy-8(E)-Octadecenoic acid (DOD) by heat treatment. The structure of EODA was confirmed by GC/MS, NMR, FTIR analysis and maximum production yield under the reaction conditions at 90ºC, 24 hours reached 80%. As expected, EODA showed antioxidant activity in terms of scavenging activity.